


The Hearthkeeper

by Cinnamongirl



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Elvhen Pantheon, Gen, Sisters, Suicidal Thoughts, Sylaise is an unreliable narrator, The Evanuris are ridiculous, This will probably all become non-canonical when DA4 is released
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 20:08:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6254161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinnamongirl/pseuds/Cinnamongirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A character study of Sylaise, with a particular focus on her relationship with Andruil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hearthkeeper

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Inquisikat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inquisikat/gifts).



_Sylaise the Hearthkeeper is seen as the sister of Andruil the Huntress. While Andruil loved to run with the creatures of the wild, Sylaise preferred to stay by her home-tree, occupying herself with gentle arts and song._

 

 

At different times, Sylaise and her sister had been enemies, close friends, bitter rivals, and reluctant allies—not to mention the time when Andruil ignored her entirely for 72 years—but now, their complex and millennia-long relationship had been reduced to a single sentence.

Sylaise never understood how she she was supposed to have accomplished enough to be considered a goddess in the first place if all she ever did was stay by a tree. Her ostensible role in their large, dysfunctional family was an odd one; associated with childbirth (but not motherhood), weaving rope and thread (but not craft), and fire (but not the sun); but she was, ultimately, remembered as a sister and after spending a significant part of her very long life with nothing to do but reflect, Sylaise thought that maybe history had gotten the important part right after all. 

 

Fire is a peculiar concept.

Andruil sometimes called the whole idea boring (“ _It's just a fucking fire, stop overthinking it_ ”) but she'd never really appreciated the beauty in precisely-controlled power. A raging wildfire is dramatic, passionate, violent, _masculine_ ; but the act of tending a hearth is quaint, domestic, feminine to the point of being dowdy. How odd, Sylaise thought, that the process of control should earn so little respect when an unchecked fireplace can quickly destroy everything one knows and loves--or, more likely, can burn out quickly and leave one to freeze to death--but when fire is controlled, it provides warmth and can be used to cook, to forge a blade, to sterilize medical tools, to find one's way in the dark. 

Fire both promotes life and ends it. 

It's not the worst concept that one can be associated with, if one aspires to godhood. 

It wasn't such a surprise when Sylaise also realized that she had a gift for weaving, and for healing, which both involve sitting still (in a large and elegantly-appointed room, thank you, NOT by a tree) and focusing and applying careful control to what would otherwise be chaos. As with fire, no amount of magical ability in healing can compensate for a lack of fundamental knowledge.

Sylaise talent for healing, magic and otherwise, was actually the single most important reason why she was able to quietly amass power during the war. People tend to underestimate the importance of a healer until they are needed and Sylaise was widely considered soft and weak by those who bothered to pay attention to her at all, but she didn't mind. She publicly threw around phrases like “Vir Atish'an” while she secretly taught the gift of healing to the right people, at the right times, until the dust had settled and no one could ignore her influence. She had earned her place among the gods. 

The healer has the bloodiest hands. 

 

She was not a bad person.

Sylaise was sure of this- it didn't really matter anymore, but she'd put a lot of thought into it and she knew that she wasn't. Countless people worshipped her, pledged themselves to her service—many of them willingly--and loved her as a benevolent deity who provided for and took care of them. It was only reasonable that she solidified her authority by taking credit for farfetched, grandiose accomplishments like giving fire to the People or being the first person to figure out how to spin fibers into a rope. She'd earned her position and they needed her. 

The right amount of wind can ignite a fire, but too much can extinguish it. As in everything, it comes down to control.

Andruil was not a bad person, either. 

This, if Sylaise, was being entirely honest, she was less sure about.

Andruil was powerful, passionate, strong, talented- Sylaise could say this much without reservation. She admired her sister's ferocity and energy. Andruil had always been more popular, more _exciting_ than she was. She could be cruel, too, but it was her right, wasn't it? Except-

Every time she came back from the Void, it was worse. Andruil said things meant to be forgotten and began to hunt mercilessly, but she forgot herself and couldn't even remember what she'd done. Sylaise could never imagine what it would be like to lose control over her own actions. It was terrifying.

“ _Sometimes you scare me_ , Sylaise confessed while her sister was experiencing a brief moment of lucidity. Andruil apologized and said that she was even more afraid of herself.

She once asked Sylaise to kill her. It was in between episodes of madness, when she said that she couldn't trust herself and didn't even know what she was becoming. She seemed surprised and hurt when Sylaise refused. 

Sylaise wasn't even sure that she _could_ kill her, and it wouldn't be an option even if it WAS possible. She was her _sister_ -

It was the second-most painful experience of Sylaise's life. A few months later, when the madness had passed, Andruil didn't remember any of it. 

 

Andruil was only “cured” when Mythal tricked her and stole her memory. She insisted that it was the only way to save Andruil from herself, but Sylaise was never able to forgive her.

That's not why she killed her.

Sylaise was never able to think of a satisfying answer for why she did it. She'd been a respected general and a powerful ruler, yes, but she was also the quiet (boring) one who perfected the art of _weaving_ and sat by trees and poked at fireplaces. She wasn't, typically, someone who murdered her peers. 

It's not like there were no reasons why anyone would want to kill Mythal. There had been countless feuds and alliances between all of them over the years but Mythal had a bad habit of inserting herself in everyone's affairs, presuming that _she_ was the one who not only knew what justice was but had the right to dispense it. They were on the verge of amassing more power than they'd ever known and Mythal just stood in their way.

It wasn't Sylaise's idea to kill her in the first place. It wasn't about June, either, even with all of her affection for him. She'd been loyal to Mythal once but it was true that she was becoming too powerful (and she _wasn't_ any better than the rest of them) but most importantly, she couldn't let Andruil try to do this without standing beside her. Sylaise made what was possibly the biggest mistake of her life because she couldn't _not_ support her sister when she went up against the person who had taken away part of her memory. Maybe the people who called her soft were right, after all. 

 

Exiled in a place where there are no trees to sit under at all, Sylaise had a very long time with nothing to do but watch and think.

She saw her legacy fade away until all that was left were a handful of misremembered stories repeated by weak, ignorant creatures. It was pathetic, what the world had been reduced to in her absence. 

But still, throughout everything, Sylaise was remembered as a sister; one of the few facts that the legends got correct. It was enough.


End file.
